Monday, April 10, 2006

people and balls

WARNING THIS IS A RANT

picture this situation, you are standing in a sunny park, you have a ball in your hand, you see someone interesting, you throw the ball at him/her, you may imagine one of the following results:

1. ball hits him/her unaware, right then and there, you laugh smiling at him/her
2. he/she notices the ball flying in his/her direction and either dodges it or catches it
3. you completely miss (you can eliminate this case by more practice at throwing balls)

now you can also imagine one of the following responses
for case 1:
a) he/she is angry to be the target of your ball, the question lights up, "what are you doing in the park then?"
b) he/she laughs and throws the ball right back at you, grinning!
c) he/she has never in his life seen a ball before, hence it just bounces off him/her and falls in the mud.

for case 2:
a) if he/she dodges it, and looks busy or uninterested, again the question lights up, "what are you doing in the park then?"
b) he/she dodges the ball and doesn't seem to notice, you might want to try another ball at the same target.
c) he/she plus you start playing ball, both parties grinning.

now for whatever or whoever's sake, which pair of action and reaction is more fun, IMHO i think it would be either 2-c , or 1-b with 1-b being more natural, of course the worst possible pair would be 1-a being the most common, and 1-c being excessively dreary.
the question now, is why do people go to parks in the first place, reasons may vary from enjoying the sun, wanting a partner to play ball , to planning mass murder of everyone playing ball.
AFAIK, going to a park cause you don't want to meet people is irrational and unhealthy, oddly enough seems to be disturbingly common.
the smart ones "hopefully you" reading between the lines would recognize that the park I'm talking about are any Internet medium where people join example something like Hi5.com or NeatVibe.com or the like, and the balls are the conversation / socialization attempts, now call me insane but for the life of me i don't understand why do people join such "open communities" if there answer to socialization attempts is something like "i don't trust anyone from the net" assume the shrillest voice you could imagine ... yikes, what does "trust" have to do with this? it's just a ball!! trust is something that comes with time, say after 20 ball games..
human foibles are diverse and many, so each one individual of us has his/her own crop of in-securities, no one is about to pamper your foibles, when you act that way, well you really really should consider locking your self up in a dark stone closet with water dripping slowly on you (effective Chinese torture method),
but DO delete your account first!

if you don't want to be in the park, then don't be in the park.
for the rest of us who do want to play ball, the sun is bright and there are a lot of people out there, the object is to have fun, meet people noncommittally, mingle and enjoy new ideas, to enrich your life with new people, possible friends and maybe even more, just remember why you went to the park in the first place.
and for anyone out there, I've got plenty of balls !! :P
note : this manual does not cover sleazy balls infected or diseased or even hairy ones ..